Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing the dark Sylvari guardian, a Twilight sympathizer if you will. Uusally use midnight ice, midnight sky, and midnight blue, sometimes midnight green.

TA full set with hidden helm. Midnight Ice, Midnight Blue, Midnight Sky.

Then I went away for the holidays. I come back, I’ve barely managed to get to level 5 in this new fractal dungeon. Everyone seems to be in the teens.

Over 2 days I’ve tried to get fractal groups now for level 5, and every single time the swamp pops up and people log, crash, quit, or whatever. I have never been so frustrated at spending hours to find a group only to get the same RNG map every time that completely screws me over with walls. None of these are l2p issues, they are RNG and terrible system issues.

Fractals was the worst thing to happen to this game. I’m just so unbelievable frustrated at trying to enjoy it, only to get crapped on over and over by things out of my control and a massive fracturing of the dungeon running population.

I thought I could take a break in this game and then come back and feel like I’m progressing. Coming back and spending hours and hours just to find a group and then having the same unenjoyable terrible map make that experience horrible? No thank you. I thought I’d be able to handle the terrible treadmill, but if I wanted that, there are TONS of games that do it better. I so hate this game right now.

Thanks for the tips guys. Will review and get back.

Krathalos.3461:

EasymodeX.4062:

Come on man, you’re going to see bow+gun Warrs at least as often as you see S/D+P/P thieves.

The Sword/Dagger is perfect for setting up Unload DPS from the Pistol, right? Man these CC+ weapon swap channel DPS builds sound fabulous.

You’re completely ignoring everything a thief has to give up to do it, or everything a thief already doesn’t have simply because they are a thief. All of the classes in the game can be built for instagib kills.

And none of those classes has the survivability a thief does when specced for glass, except maybe a Mesmer. A thiefs survivability comes from class mechanics, not gear or utilities to a certain extent. A Mesmer is the same. Bunker specs for guardians rely on gear and utilities, because their class mechanics are sad compared to resetting a fight completely.

If a guard cannon could reset a fight by using #5 on a weapon skill repeatedly without even needing utilities, it would be a different story yes?

Hi it’s called balance, but you’re so used to being OP you can’t see it.

Krathalos.3461:

Proteus.6320:

But nice attempt at trying to compare a glass thief to a bunker guard. What about a glass thief and a glass guard?

Stealth isn’t even overpowered.

Can’t take anything you say seriously after this point.

Guardians have the same health and maybe 200ish more armor due to heavy armor. K.
And lol marketed as being beat running away, AND killin people in seconds.
That’s the cake and eating it too.

Krathalos.3461:

Proteus.6320:

Now before anyone calls me a nerf herder, let me state that I have an end game thief, guardian, and necro. This is from experience.

The reason thief is gettin adjustment is simple:

They have more survivability even when full burst spec than many other classes most survivable specs.

Stealth is ridiculously powerful. A full glass thief can have more survivability than a full bunker guardian if played correctly. Now you may argue this is not the case, but let’s compare a full glass guardian to a full glass thief. That guardian is going down fast under fire if they blow their combo and it fails. They just die. A thief on the other hand, can stealth away. “But just aoe where they stealth” is a terrible suggestion.

No other class in the game can come close to the survivability of a thief with a glass spec when they themselves are glass spec.
That’s why a nerf is coming.

Deal with it in dignity.

Can’t take anything you say seriously after this point.

I should’ve clarified in wvwvw. Going invisible vs a Zerg and speeding away or popping every cooldown and still getting destroyed?

Yeh. Context matters, I’ve defined it. Perhaps you could do more than take it personally.

But nice attempt at trying to compare a glass thief to a bunker guard. What about a glass thief and a glass guard?

Straight up lying or just ignorant.

What other burst class with a glass spec can reset a fight the way a glass thief can? Maybe Mesmer, and that’s it. If you catch a glass guard, necro, elementslist, ranger, or warrior after they have blown their combo they are as good as dead because no amount of defenses they have compares to the complete mitigation of being invisible.

A thief can reset a fight easily compared to any other class. It’s not the burst that is an issue so much as stealth itself being too much mitigation for zero sacrifice.

Why doesn’t anyone address the real issue:
We have to spec defense to fight a thief because let’s be honest here, their glass cannon specs survivability puts our classes glass specs survivability to utter shame.

A thief CAN roll full offense while taking complete advantage of a mechanic that offers 100% protection. If both classes blow their combo and fail, a thief has a much better chance of resetting the fight. It’s not even close.

“Just swing your weapon where they vanished” no other class except Mesmer can even touch that kind of survivability when spec for full glass.

The problem isn’t their burst so much as it is their survivability being extreme. I have a thief I pvp with often. Sound like a lot of you come across some scrubs.

Now before anyone calls me a nerf herder, let me state that I have an end game thief, guardian, and necro. This is from experience.

The reason thief is gettin adjustment is simple:

They have more survivability even when full burst spec than many other classes most survivable specs.

Stealth is ridiculously powerful. A full glass thief can have more survivability than a full bunker guardian if played correctly. Now you may argue this is not the case, but let’s compare a full glass guardian to a full glass thief. That guardian is going down fast under fire if they blow their combo and it fails. They just die. A thief on the other hand, can stealth away. “But just aoe where they stealth” is a terrible suggestion.

No other class in the game can come close to the survivability of a thief with a glass spec when they themselves are glass spec.
That’s why a nerf is coming.

Deal with it in dignity.

This build morphed into crit hammer naturally just by swapping major traits from meditations to AH. I still run this build but dropped some toughness for more power and crit damage. Still solid GS+hammer for pve open world with bloodlust on GS makes the hammer even more beastly. Also swapped into life steal with omnom pie and blood sigil, works surprisingly well. Still swap to a med build for spvp.

At almost 2k power it’s really strong. Usually sustains around 3300 to 3500 attack solo, more in groups. Stats look like (beserk GS with bloodlust,and knights hammer with blood) (scepter/staff/sword are blood, focus/torch/shield are air)
3k attack
2600/2800 armor
40 crit before food, 74/83 crit dmg
16k HP (18k with staff for wvwvw)
Healing power is 200 from traits alone

Solid.

The game is possibly still too new to have guides against every class and builds to go with it too. You sound like the type of player that shouldn’t be playing a guardian anyways if you need your hand held through everything with builds and strats; maybe the warrior is for you.

if you with to get better with the guardian, expand your horizons with experimentation and see what works, then post it here. That’s what most of us are still doing.

Just rename it “Suddenly kittens, everywhere”

The damage is actually a lot closer than people think. Run some time to kill tests on mobs in the mists and you’ll see. The fast recharge on #2 combined with the actual high damage of the symbol on 3rd hit of #1 give some serious damage but not in big numbers. I feel hammer had even more mobility than GS, more control by a londshot, not to mention nearly permanent protection… Hard to beat all that.

I’ve done a little bit of everything with it. For spvp I really would go with a more support oriented build though, dropping valor to 20, crank honor to 30 and trait for condition removal and shouts. Same loadouts otherwise.

For wvwvw this spec is solid. Not at a Zerg but against roamers I’ve won every 1on1 an quite a few 2v1.

For pve this spec allows you to handle 5 Orr mobs easily. For dungeons I’m finding again going for 30 honor over valor to pull ahead due to group utility but this version works fine in most. I’d swap the staff for scepter focus, and get might for allies on crit. Spec shouts and boons healing allies instead of med heals.

It’s quite versatile, and that 30 crit 60ish crit damage (often overlooked bonus of valor for more damage oriented specs that want to opt for some survivability) is beastly.

I frequently finish off my fights at full HP.

Ive tried a bunch of different builds since hitting 80 and multiple gear loadouts with each. I’ve tried glass cannons, Radiance crit builds, honor/virtue support builds, valor tank type builds, but all of them didn’t mesh well with my playstyle. I’ve finally found a build that fits my solo centric play, but with small utility benefits for my allies. I won’t save the day, but will be incredibly sturdy while putting out some solid dps.

The idea was to solo easily and be a frontliner melee in events. Ive used heavy honor but really like the valor line, even though many consider it lackluster. I’ve also heard meditations are considered meh, but I’ve found for my playse they are multifunctional tools that can be clicked for multiple end results.

http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/guardian#1.0.2.0-3.7.5.4.1-0.15.30.20.5-12.7.4.8.5.8

0/15/30/20/5

Lots of burning. Decent amount of crits that hurt. Great self healing (dodge on a fast refill, aegis dropping, meditations, life steal/water sigil, symbols too if needed) mitigation with high toughness and constant protection which meshes very well with that amount of armor, constant retaliation, might (if I don’t slot the +20 2h recharge) and vigor.

Gear for berserker chest/legs, Valkyrie and knight mix other peices. Knights/valk mix jewelry, knight weapon.

Stats look like: 2600 attack (might stacks from staff help alphas), 30 crit with 60 crit damage, 1800 toughness, 16.3k HP, and close to 350 healing.

Hammer all the way for protection and retaliation. It seems to actually do more damage than the GS unless you spec for lots of might duration and fight swarms with GS (something to be said for sustainable 10-15 stacks of might but can’t do it with higher dps and mitigation too).

Anyways it’s a fun build and really fits my playstyle. It’s not support oriented through traits but can easily drop the meditation traits and utilities for a different loadouts. The beauty of this trait loadouts is that it’s not weapon restricted really, nor does it need to be very utility specific., but will benefit most from meditations or signets.